You're ripped at every edge but you're a masterpiece
by bechloehuh
Summary: Beca is in love with Chloe. Chloe is in love with Stacie. Stacie is in love with Aubrey. Everything is messed up. (The unrequited love AU that nobody asked for.) Title taken from Halsey's 'Colors'.


**This all started with the fandoms obsession with chacie and then i thought HEY why not make an unrequited love au because I CLEARLY HATE MYSELF. and then this happened. it was only supposed to be a short one shot but here we are at 20k because i am trash. it's still a one shot though, but like a super long one. FUN. prepare for angst, but with a happy ending because i cannot fathom the thought of bechloe and staubrey not having a happy ending. (i say as i plan another angsty one shot) ENJOY.**

* * *

" _If music be the food of love, play on. Give me excess of it; that surfeiting. The appetite may sicken, and so die._ "  
― William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night

* * *

For as long as Chloe can remember she's been a morning person.

It kind of comes with the territory of growing up on a farm with a brother, Caleb, and three older cousins. They've always been a happy bunch; all five of them. Caleb and Chloe actually being the main reason for said early mornings. They're always the first to go to sleep and the first to wake up. But of course, they grew up on a farm, so waking up early wasn't _particularly_ unusual.

Sometimes Chloe would wake up before the rooster cried out in the morning, and she would sit in the window seat in her bedroom and watch the sunrise. Sometimes Caleb would come in and sit opposite her and she'd tell him a story, mostly a fairytale. She loves fairytales. Sometimes they'd laugh. Sometimes they'd tell each other secrets or listen to music. Sometimes they wouldn't say a word.

Chloe Beale loves a lot of things, but sunrises are probably high enough on the list to almost beat art. Almost.

It's something to do with the colors. She practically thinks in colors.

She loves how the oranges and yellows and pinks and golds seem to pour out of the sun, kissing everything they touch, creating a type of radiance that can never be captured in photos; she doesn't even _try_ to take photos of them, because she knows photos won't do them justice, won't be able to show just how beautiful they actually are. She has to just _be_ there, witnessing the way the dawn breaks out over the horizon, the soft rays bringing warmth to a new day. How the trees stand tall in the distance, black silhouettes over the bright golden sky. Loves how no matter what happens that day, the sun will always rise again the next morning. Knows that no sunrise will ever be identical to another.

To Chloe, sunrises are warm cups of coffee, meeting new people, and passionately falling in love.

Sunsets are different. Sunsets are dark red fires slowly spreading over the sky, threads of light lingering behind and blending with the clouds. Sunsets are swirls of fuchsias and auburns and crimsons and carmines, dipping behind the horizon as the clouds get thinner, as if they barely even exist. The colors waning slowly until the sky turns dark and the day comes to an end, and all that's left is the stars; the sparkling embers stilling as the fire slowly recedes.

Sunsets are late-night break-ups, sad goodbyes, and old coffee-stained love letters.

Chloe tries her hardest to avoid sunsets whenever she can. She can't quite describe how they make her feel; can't quite grasp the correct words yet to be able to string a sentence together that will make sense to anybody except her.

Sunsets just make her sad.

When she wakes up after an almost sleepless night, it's before the city is even properly awake. She's always had an internal alarm clock – most of the time it doesn't stop her from actually setting one though, because you can never be too safe – but she's surprised when she actually wakes up before five thirty.

She makes herself a coffee from the Keurig – a gift that her brother had bought her before she moved to New York – and she pours two sugars in the cup, stirring it before dropping the spoon into the sink.

When she steps out onto her balcony, she's even more surprised to see her next-door neighbor outside, looking out at the city.

It's kind of weird, Chloe thinks, that their balconies are connected. Even though the loft she's renting is for one person, she was kind of surprised to learn that the balcony was however, for two people. Kind of dangerous, she thinks, if you end up living next door to a psychopath, but Stacie seems really nice.

Stacie Conrad has always been a mystery to Chloe, despite only knowing her for a month.

She knows that she has a new person over at her apartment practically every weekend, and she knows that she likes to read gossip magazines and drink red wine on her balcony late at night. She doesn't really know much else about her, but then again, Stacie doesn't really know much about Chloe either, other than the fact that she sings show tunes in the shower and paints a lot.

(She had mentioned the singing to Chloe a few days after Chloe had moved in when they were both reading on the balcony, breaking the ice by telling Chloe that she loved her rendition of Defying Gravity that morning. Chloe would've been embarrassed, but she knows she's an awesome singer, so she just laughed and introduced herself properly.)

"Hey," Chloe says when Stacie turns to look at her, and her voice is quiet, afraid that talking too loud will disturb the peace; wake everybody else in the building.

Stacie smiles at her, and she looks so different in the morning, Chloe thinks. Her hair is up in a messy bun, scraped back with only a few strands falling over her temples. So different to how it usually is when Chloe sees her, most of the time in loose curls or sometimes straightened, flowing over her shoulders. She's wearing a white tank top and a pair of blue pajama shorts, and her small "mornin'," makes Chloe smile as she leans against the railing next to her, holding her coffee in front of her as they both look out at the city.

"It's beautiful, right?" Chloe whispers, and Stacie hums. "How come you're up so early?"

"I could ask you the same thing."

"Internal alarm. Although this is pretty early for me," she pulls her cup towards her and blows the coffee gently. "Had a long night."

"Painting?"

"Yeah."

"I just love watching the sunrise."

Chloe smiles as she turns to look at Stacie, the rising sun illuminating her face in a way that kind of stuns Chloe for a moment. She'd be lying if she said she doesn't find Stacie attractive. Although she's pretty sure that everybody in the building does. Chloe doesn't particularly have a _type_ , but she'd say that Stacie is as far from her type as anybody can get. She's not the type of attractive that normally pulls Chloe in, but there's just something about her.

And Chloe's never watched the sunrise with anybody other than her brother before, so this kind of feels weird.

Intimate, sort of.

"Chloe? You good? Kinda spaced out for a second."

She nods.

Her name has never sounded so good coming out of somebody else's mouth.

Maybe that should've been a red flag.

* * *

Perhaps filling up her schedule with endless trips to the gym isn't quite what Chloe intended.

But she needs to distract herself, so here she is at the gym for the fourth time that week, Beyoncé playing in her earbuds as she turns the speed up on the treadmill. Her legs are burning and there's sweat running down into her eyes, but she doesn't care.

She doesn't even like the gym.

It's gross and humid and full of sweaty, uninteresting teenagers who are only there to show off their non-existent muscles.

But she supposes it's better than staying at home with nothing to do, where she'll most likely just be waiting around for any semblance of an email from the countless numbers of jobs she's applied for. As riveting as that sounds, she's been doing that for the past month now, and it hasn't really got her anywhere. She _did_ manage to watch three seasons of Orphan Black in a single weekend though, so she'd say that's an achievement in itself.

Living in New York does have its perks though. She has a great view of Central Park from her apartment, and there's a really cute guy named Tom who she met two days after moving in, and he lives in the apartment block next door and sometimes she hangs out with him. Plus, there's Stacie, who she hasn't actually seen since a few days ago when they were watching the sunrise together, but she still considers her as more than just a stranger.

There's also a really nice bakery that's literally next door to her apartment block – _Expresso Yourself_ – and the boy who owns it, Benji, knows her name and her order already, and she sometimes gets a free cookie with her coffee because he's a sweetheart.

 _And_ she saw Taylor Swift walking out of a hotel the other day and she almost – _almost_ – fell over out of excitement, so of course, she wouldn't want to be living anywhere else, despite it being so different to the Tennessee country-life she's used to.

However, being an _artist_ in NY isn't quite as easy as being, say, an _actress_ or a _singer_ in NY. It's not that she's not talented enough. She knows she's talented. She graduated college with a degree in fine art, and she once met Christian Jankowski at an exhibit and he told her that she "really has an eye for detail" when she showed him her photography. So she's confident enough, and she knows that one day, someone will actually notice her art and all her hard work will pay off. She just hopes it won't take too long.

By the time she's listened to two Beyoncé albums, she feels like she could collapse at any minute. There are probably worse places to be than the gym, but when she turns around to see an old man bending over in shorts that are _way_ too short to be worn in public, Chloe's convinced that this is in fact, the worst place in the world.

She decides against showering in the gym showers – she doesn't trust the green moss on the walls – opting on having one at home instead. Thankfully, her apartment is only a fifteen minute walk from the gym, ten minutes if she jogs, so she gathers her stuff from the locker rooms and walks back home. It's only lunch time, so she stops at the bakery on the way, her money already out as she approaches the counter.

Benji is lively as per usual, and he gives Chloe her free cookie and tells her about a girl he met, Emily.

"She's really cute," he tells her, with a grin on his face.

"She's a singer and I met her at the open mic night we held the other day," he says.

"Our first date is tonight, so wish me luck!"

Chloe thinks it's adorable.

The rest of her day is spent painting, with only a few breaks in between to check Tumblr and her emails to see if anyone has bought any of the work she's put up in her Etsy shop, but nobody has. There's a small trip to the fridge for the left-over Chinese food from last night and all in all, it's a pretty boring day, up until she turns the TV on to see that there's a re-run of one of her favorite Bachelor episodes on.

She has paint all over her, but that doesn't stop her from sitting down on the couch with the rest of her food and indulging in the wonder that is trash TV.

* * *

The next morning she wakes up even earlier, for some reason, checking her phone to see that it's 4:30AM. She thinks about lying in bed for a while, maybe to try and go back to sleep for an hour, but the possibility of missing the sunrise keeps her up.

After checking her emails – again, to see nothing but junk mail – she pulls her bathrobe on and goes downstairs with a yawn, walking into the kitchen and making herself a coffee before heading out onto the balcony. Stacie isn't there again today, so Chloe sits down on the small bench outside and turns her small radio on, hearing the morning radio presenter talking about the next song he's gonna be playing.

And she waits for a while, just looking at the sky and occasionally taking sips of her coffee and she hums along to whatever song is playing on the small radio. She eventually stands up when she sees that the sun is starting to rise, and she could probably utilize her time much more efficiently, instead of sitting around waiting for the sunrise, but she doesn't have anything else to do today, and the sun is always pretty.

Almost as pretty as Stacie, who comes out at ten past six with a cup of coffee, looking beside her immediately to see Chloe leaning against the railing.

And it kind of shocks Chloe, how good Stacie looks. She's already dressed for work, wearing a light blue blouse and black pants, and Chloe has never understood how she does it; how she looks so effortlessly pretty.

"Morning," Stacie says with a smile, and Chloe mirrors it, putting her empty cup down on the table before leaning against the balcony again.

"Haven't seen you in a few days."

"Yeah, I was out of town. My little sister just graduated high school so I went home for a while."

Chloe smiles. "Home?"

"Avonmore," she takes a sip of her coffee as she looks out at the sun rising in front of her.

It's not much but it's another fact she knows about Stacie, so Chloe classes that as a success.

She thinks about Stacie's little sister and wonders if she's anything like her.

* * *

Chloe's surprised to see a girl behind the counter of the coffee shop instead of Benji. She'd said goodbye to Stacie before she went to work, promising Chloe that she'll be on the balcony tomorrow morning to watch the sunrise again.

(Chloe tried not to think about that too much.)

Except she does, she thinks about it when she gets dressed, and when she does her make-up, and when she walks down to the coffee shop next door until she sees this girl she doesn't recognize behind the counter.

Looks like she won't be getting a free cookie today.

"Hi," she says, smiling at the girl, who looks shocked to see Chloe looking so chipper at this time on a morning. "Large Cappuccino to go, please."

The girl just looks down at the cash register, tapping out the order before quietly saying, "three fifty."

She smiles as she hands over the money, her smile not faltering when the girl – _Beca_ , judging by her name tag – hands her back her change before walking away to make the coffee.

For a brief moment she wonders where Benji is, but then she hears her name being called from behind her and she turns around to see him walking into the shop with Jesse – another employee who works for Benji – trailing behind him.

"Hey Benji, hey Jesse" she smiles, watching them put their aprons on as they both walk behind the counter, "how ya doing?"

"Great," Jesse says, at the same time Benji says "I'm good!"

Benji grins in that way that reminds Chloe of her little brother, and she mirrors his smile as Beca turns around, catching her eye briefly before she looks down at the coffee machine again.

"Any sales today?"

"Nope, not today," she sighs. "You'll be the first to know if I do though."

"It'll happen, I know it."

Benji smiles again, and she almost believes him.

Benji tells her that there's another open mic night in the coffee shop at the weekend, and she should come along. At first, she wants to say no, because she has plans that involve painting and listening to Taylor Swift, but Benji looks like he'll be really happy to see her there. That, and she's never actually been to an open mic night.

"I'll stop by," she tells him, and she smiles again when Beca looks up at her. "Will you be there?" she asks her, and Beca just shrugs her shoulders, still waiting for the coffee machine to finish making her cappuccino.

"I'd say I have better things to do, but that'd be a lie."

Jesse walks in from the back and tells Chloe that yes, Beca will be there, and Chloe smiles when Beca rolls her eyes in a way that makes her look like a teenager. She's not really sure how old she is, but she only looks about seventeen. She thinks that it's nice though, knowing another person in the city. Other than Stacie, Tom, Benji, Jesse, and the stray dog she sometimes sees on the way to the gym, Chloe hasn't really been acquainted with many people so far.

"I better get going," Chloe says when Beca hands her the cup of coffee, smiling as she drops a few tips in the jar. "It was nice to meet you."

"Yeah, you too," Beca says.

Benji asks her if she got her cookie before she can turn around, and she shakes her head with a wave of her hand, telling him she's already eaten.

She hears the girl asking who she is when she walks out of the shop, and she smiles to herself as she walks back to her apartment.

* * *

The next morning, Stacie is on the balcony again, just like she said she would be.

She tells Chloe that she doesn't have to go into school until twelve because she has a dentist appointment, and Chloe resists the urge to ask her if she wants to grab breakfast together. That'd sound too much like a date, and Chloe's not sure if that's a little too forward.

She's never had to worry about being too forward.

* * *

Friday rolls around, and Chloe is just about to set off to the coffee shop when she sees Stacie drinking a glass of wine at the table on the balcony.

"Hey," she says, sliding the door open. "You okay?"

Stacie nods, and her eyes roam over Chloe's body, and it makes Chloe feel a little warm, despite the chill in the air.

"Where are you going? You look nice."

"Open mic night at Benji's."

"Benji's?"

"Oh," Chloe shakes her head, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. "Expresso Yourself? The coffee shop next door?"

"Oh, right!" Stacie nods her head, and it causes a few strands of hair fall down into her face, and Chloe has the urge to tuck them behind Stacie's ear, but Stacie is doing it before the thought even settles in her mind.

Chloe invites her along but she says she has a date, and she's not really sure why her stomach decides to do flips at that, but she doesn't think too much about it.

* * *

Emily is an absolute sweetheart, and she can tell that Benji really likes her, because he keeps visiting their table every five minutes and he holds Emily's hand every single time.

She'd arrived a little later than everybody else at eight o'clock, and she immediately noticed Beca sitting at a table at the back. She knows that she's not really acquainted with Beca enough to sit with her, but nobody else was sitting at her table and Chloe didn't particularly want to be the girl walking around the café looking for somewhere to sit. That, and it was kind of busy, so there were no free tables.

Beca smiled at Chloe when she sat down, and it made her feel a little welcome, despite the usual 'I don't give a fuck' attitude that she thinks Beca has been trying to perfect since kindergarten.

"You look nice," she told Beca as the middle aged man on the stage continued his rendition of some song that Chloe has never heard of. She had taken in the purple plaid shirt, ripped skinny jeans, and the black combat boots that seemed to look way too big for Beca, and she had a little more eyeliner on than what she normally wore to work, and her hair was down and she really does look nice. Better than nice.

When Beca's eyes look Chloe up and down in a way that doesn't actually make Chloe feel uncomfortable, she thinks that maybe she and Beca are friends now.

"You look nice too."

She has a to-go cup in her hand, and she thinks for a brief moment that maybe Beca isn't staying, and she's not really sure why she feels sad at that. But then Beca pushes the chair opposite her out with her foot and tells Chloe to sit down, so she does. Emily arrives ten minutes later, immediately greeting them both with a smile, telling Beca that it's good to see her again, and telling Chloe that it's really nice to meet her.

When Benji and Jesse go back to work behind the counter – it's Beca's night off, apparently – Beca tells Chloe and Emily that she's not really used to this whole 'having friends' thing, and she kind of wants to give her a hug.

When it's Emily's turn to get up on stage, she sings a beautiful cover of Stitches by Shawn Mendes, accompanied by the guitar that Chloe has always noticed sitting in the corner of the stage, and her and Beca are cheering the loudest when she finishes.

When she looks at Beca, and Beca smiles back at her, she thinks that maybe she's starting to love the city.

* * *

At eleven o'clock when the coffee shop is empty, save for the five of them – Jesse is at the toilet, Benji and Emily making googly eyes at each other, and Chloe and Beca talking about Beca's mixes – Chloe announces that she should probably head home.

Beca asks her where she lives and if she needs a ride, because she hasn't been drinking, but Chloe tells her that she only lives in the loft building next door. Yet, Beca still walks her home after saying goodbye to the rest of them, because her car is parked next to the building, but Chloe thinks it's because Beca doesn't want anything to happen to her.

And Chloe's not drunk, but when Beca hugs her outside of the building and tells her that she had a really good time tonight, it makes Chloe feel like she's intoxicated.

She gets home to see the lights all out at Stacie's place, and she wakes up to see Stacie on the balcony again.

* * *

Watching the sunrise together sort of becomes Chloe and Stacie's _thing_ , after that.

Chloe _always_ wakes up around five thirty every day, maybe six if she went to bed particularly late, and Stacie is always waiting for her on the balcony. She doesn't know what time Stacie gets up – doesn't know what time she even goes to sleep – and sometimes Stacie's not there. But most times Chloe wakes up before her, makes a coffee, and on the occasion that they're both standing on the shared balcony at the same time, they watch the sunrise together.

They don't really talk much apart from the occasional "what're your plans for today?" and "did you sleep well?" and sometimes Chloe learns a little more about Stacie, like how she's twenty four – two years older than her – and how she lived in Thailand for three years when she was younger, and how she has a degree in Physics, and she teaches at Eleanor Roosevelt High School, which Chloe was honestly really surprised to learn.

It's nice though, just watching the sunrise in silence. It's something that Chloe never really knew she needed.

There's already a cup of coffee and a Stacie Conrad standing on the balcony when Chloe walks outside on a particularly warm September morning, three weeks after their _thing_ started. Stacie's hair is down, water dripping off of the ends and onto her tank top from her shower.

"Hey," Stacie smiles when she sees her, picking up the spare cup that Chloe had noticed on the table, "I remember you said you ran out of coffee yesterday so I made you one."

Chloe smiles, taking the cup from Stacie, and she whispers "you're a life saver", as she leans against the balcony.

The sky is a little darker today, and the colors remind Chloe of Halloween, and she's reminded of the way Beca was complaining about the Halloween decorations in the coffee shop yesterday. Emily, Benji, and Jesse had put them up before Beca had got into work, and the look on her face was priceless.

"Hey, are you busy today?"

Chloe tears her eyes away from the sunrise, to see Stacie looking at her as she takes a sip of her coffee.

"I–I don't think so, no. Why?"

"You wanna hang out? I finished grading my kids' papers last night so I don't have plans, and there's this really cute diner down the street that does _amazing_ waffles. Wanna go?"

"Yeah," Chloe smiles. "Yeah, I'd like that."

 _It's not a date_ , Chloe tells herself as they walk into the diner. _You hardly even know each other._

They may share a balcony but they're still only neighbors.

Yet, when Stacie offers to pay for her waffles, it totally feels like a date.

"Just pay next time," she says casually as they go take their seats after paying, waiting for the waffles to come.

They talk about themselves a lot to say it's not a date. Or maybe it is, and Chloe's just being slow.

Chloe learns that Stacie's younger sister is called Tori, and she grew up with her and her mom in Avonmore, and her parents divorced when she was ten years old. The divorce wasn't messy or anything; her parents just stopped loving each other. They weren't happy. Chloe thinks that's sad and beautiful at the same time.

Stacie learns that Chloe is actually a dork when she's nervous, and she talks a lot about art.

When the waffles arrive, Stacie smothers hers in syrup, laughing when Chloe tells her she's going to die of too much sugar intake, and it's easy to joke around with Stacie because she's so laid back and sweet.

They're sat opposite each other, and Chloe is laughing at something that Stacie had said, trying not to make too much of a fool out of herself. She's being polite though, eating with her mouth closed, wiping the drops of syrup from the corners of her mouth, and even taking small sips of her coffee rather than big gulps. Stacie, on the other hand, doesn't really seem to care. Especially when Chloe says something funny and Stacie almost spits her food everywhere. Chloe just laughs harder though, wondering where the hell she's been her whole life.

That becomes another one of their _things_.

They watch the sunrise together, and on the odd occasion they sometimes eat breakfast together too. Sometimes Stacie knocks on Chloe's door and they watch TV and eat breakfast before Stacie has to go to work.

They fall into an easy routine.

Chloe manages to get a job at _Luke's_ , the pizza place down the street, and the routine with Stacie lasts two months until one day Chloe starts to realize she's slowly developing a crush on her.

Which is fine, because she's had crushes on her friends before now. It's nothing new. It's not like she's in love with her. She thinks Beca is attractive too, but she doesn't want to be with her. She doesn't want to be with Stacie. But Stacie Conrad is the type of person that Chloe feels like she's been searching for.

Being friends with Stacie is like the spontaneous vacations Chloe used to go on when she was younger. She doesn't quite know what's going to happen but she's always so excited it makes her whole body tingle, and sometimes she feels like it could be absolutely disastrous.

Sometimes Stacie visits _Luke's_ when it's not busy, and they talk until Chloe's shift ends, which is mostly around midnight. And it's only been a few months since they first started hanging out, but Chloe feels like she's known Stacie her whole life.

She's never had this with someone before. It's not like any friendship she's had – not that she's really _had_ many friends – and that scares her. She grew up with three best friends; Jessica, Ashley, and Flo, and it was always the three of them, throughout middle school, high school, _and_ college. That was until she moved to New York a year after graduating from Barden, Flo stayed in Atlanta, and Jessica and Ashley ended up moving in together in L.A. She still keeps in touch with them, but there comes a time when life gets in the way, and occasional skype sessions turn into two-weekly phone calls, which turn into monthly text messages, until she suddenly has nobody.

She's been kind of alone in the city for too long, and Stacie _gets_ her.

Stacie's not afraid of telling her revealing things about herself, or calming Chloe down when she goes on one of her rants while she's handing someone's pizza to them. Stacie likes reading gossip magazines and watching compilations of funny Vines on YouTube, and sometimes she talks about what's going on in the world, and updates her on the latest gossip – _real_ gossip, not the fake headlines from infamous celebrity websites. She texts Chloe at midnight on her days off to see if she's asleep, because Chloe has a tendency to lose track of time when she's painting or drawing. Stacie's hands are really soft when she holds Chloe's to give her a manicure, because "Chlo, your nail beds are horrific, here let me sort that out for you."

Sometimes she comes out of her loft to stand on the balcony, but then she sees Chloe painting in her living room and she approaches the door, squishing her face against it until Chloe notices her and invites her in. She hugs Chloe when Chloe realizes that it's been two months since someone bought one of her paintings, and she tells Chloe that she's gonna sell some soon, she knows it. The next day Chloe sells one of her paintings, but she has a feeling she knows who bought it.

She shows Chloe cute pictures of albino animals and she smiles like there's nothing bad in the world, and sometimes she gets a tear in her eye when she's talking about something she's passionate about; it's only a small twinkle but Chloe sees it.

Stacie makes sense to her. Chloe can normally write pages and pages describing things that only make sense to her.

She's a people-watcher – she has been since middle school – and she has a journal that she writes observations down in, and sometimes she even takes a picture of the person to stick next to the description. Sometimes she even stops strangers in the park and asks them about their life, and sure, most times she just gets a dirty look and a "no thank you", but some people are willing to talk to her, and it's almost as good as painting.

She observes Benji when he's with Emily. She notices that he always taps his hands on his thighs when he's talking to her, and he always seems nervous, even though they've been dating for a few months now. She thinks it's sweet that he still gets nervous.

She observes Jesse when he's working, and watches how he always whistles when he's making a sandwich or pouring a cup of coffee, and he always has a dish towel slung over his shoulder. He talks about movies a lot too, and he sometimes dances when he thinks nobody's watching.

She observes Beca too, and she always notices how bored she looks, and how she's always so grumpy with Jesse. She thinks that maybe they have a history. Beca isn't grumpy with Chloe like she is with Jesse, because Chloe can see the way her eyes light up slightly and she smiles more when Chloe talks to her.

She creates a story in her mind of the people she knows and doesn't know, and she observes people until she runs out of words to say.

Creating things is Chloe's favorite hobby. Creating paintings, creating biographies, creating memories.

What Chloe _can't_ find the words to describe properly, is Stacie Conrad.

Stacie is a hot summer night, dancing along to popular chart songs and jumping in lakes whilst half naked. Stacie is that feeling in your whole body when you stay up too late and you no longer feel tired; just _excited_ and _weird_ and _so alive_. She can be the sun and the moon at the same time; sometimes she doesn't shine quite as brightly as she normally does, but under it all, there's still a glimmer of light daring to peak out. She reminds Chloe of coconut lip balm and chocolate face masks and bright pink nail polish, and her eyes are gray but it just makes Chloe think of how the color has been sucked out of them and put into her voice.

There's _so much_ color in Stacie's voice.

It's hot pinks and bright yellows and sometimes light, grassy-colored greens, and on late nights after they've been drinking, it's tequila-flavored greys mixed with red lipstick and a little bit of blue and purple. She's jasmines, ambers, and beiges in the morning when they watch the sunrise, and she's whites and lavenders, sometimes even blacks and russet browns, on a nighttime. She's reds and Catalina blues when she's upset and she's turquoise and lemon yellows when she's excited.

Chloe thinks in color.

Stacie Conrad is a color wheel that Chloe hasn't figured out just how many colors are on yet.

And sometimes Chloe thinks that her descriptions simply don't do Stacie justice.

* * *

Another two months later, and she's only getting deeper.

Chloe spends the days that she's not with Stacie, hanging out with Benji, Emily, Jesse, and Beca, or sometimes Tom.

She looks forward to the open mic nights, where she can watch Emily and Beca hop up on stage to sing a duet, and with the way that Beca acts normally – closed-off and not really bothered about anything – she would've thought that singing at an open mic night would be last on Beca's list. But when Beca gets up on stage to sing a song that Emily had written, accompanied by Emily herself, and the guitar that's now covered in stickers; Chloe swears Beca is a different person.

Sometimes Stacie tags along to the coffee shop, and Emily and Stacie get along surprisingly well considering how different they are. Beca tells her one day that Stacie is awesome, and she can't help but agree. She loves how her friends like each other.

 _Her friends_ , she thinks. She likes the sound of that.

Chloe tells Tom about Stacie, and he tells her about this chick he met the other night at the club. She tells him that she's happy for him, but he tells her it's probably not going to last.

Stacie wraps her arm around Chloe when they're shopping in the mall, and it doesn't last long but Chloe has learned to cherish those thirty seconds when Stacie's hands slide around her waist. It feels like maybe something could happen between them.

Sometimes they stay up until four in the morning watching F.R.I.E.N.D.S and Chloe gives Stacie a few dollars to buy some Red Bull before school because she knows that she'll end up almost falling asleep in the car on the way there.

Chloe doesn't have a car but sometimes she takes the bus to the high school and surprises Stacie by leaning against the wall opposite Stacie's classroom. Sometimes she watches Stacie with the teenagers – watches how polite and patient she is with them – and she's pretty sure the whole school loves her.

Sometimes she drags Stacie, Emily, and Beca along to art museums and exhibitions, and sometimes Benji and Jesse tag along. She sells a few small paintings, and Stacie hugs her so tight that Chloe thinks she's going to burst with love.

Chloe makes sure to save some left over pizza on Friday nights so she can eat it with Stacie when she gets home from her shift because she learns that left over pizza is Stacie's favorite thing. Especially if it's three-cheese and garlic.

Chloe notices that Stacie has been going on less dates, and the bed buddies decrease and decrease until they turn into two-weekly activities. It's still not particularly nice to come home to hear Stacie's moans coming from next door, but she has to remind herself that Stacie is free to do whatever she wants.

They sometimes work together in the same room, with Chloe doing her painting or drawing, and Stacie grading papers. She loves it when Stacie throws her head back in frustration, telling Chloe that sometimes the kids she teaches can be so dumb, and Chloe gives her a back rub and tells her to have a break and watch TV with her.

Sometimes when she closes her eyes, she feels like she's in love.

Then she opens them to see Stacie, and that's basically the same thing.

Stacie kisses Chloe a week before Christmas, on the day that she's leaving to visit her family in Pennsylvania. It's only a small peck on the corner of her mouth but it's enough to stop Chloe from breathing for a few seconds.

She spends her Christmas wondering why she's pining over a girl two years older than her, like she's some freshman who's in love with a junior. She's a twenty two year old artist who works at a pizza joint, and Stacie is a twenty four year old Physics teacher who graduated with honors and was elected valedictorian in high school.

She knows it won't work out, but that doesn't stop her from hoping.

* * *

She realizes that the 'small crush' she has on Stacie might be something more, when she gets home from the gym at five o'clock to see that Stacie is back from spending Christmas with her family. Chloe knows this because there's moaning noises coming from the balcony, and she looks outside to see Stacie, and oh God, she's there, so naked and so flustered and still so, _so_ beautiful.

But the guy, however, that Stacie has her legs wrapped around isn't particularly beautiful, and the sight just makes Chloe weak, and she immediately leaves, a sick feeling in her stomach as she makes her way out of the building.

It's no big deal, really. Stacie's had people over at her place for months and Chloe's had no problems before. Maybe she's just feeling nauseous because of the eggs she had for breakfast this morning. Or it could've been the pile of vomit she saw on the side of the road, or the thought of having to make more pizzas later on, or maybe she exercised too much. There are many logical reasons why Chloe would be feeling sick right now.

 _Jealousy_ is not one of them.

Stacie having sex with someone else on _their_ balcony, is not one of them.

Despite that though, she's finding it harder and harder to keep herself together as she walks on the sidewalk with no set destination in mind. She could go get something to eat, but then again, she thinks that eating will just make her feel even more sick, and she'd rather not be that girl who throws up in a public restroom. She could go see Beca, except no – Beca is with Jesse in Atlanta, visiting their families because they both grew up together, and Benji and Emily are in Europe with Emily's parents.

And Chloe is lonely.

And it's not like she doesn't cry a lot.

She once cried for a full forty minutes because she was so overwhelmed by a cute puppy she passed on the street, but she's never cried like this. Holding her hand over her mouth as she walks down the street, not even bothering to say sorry when she walks into people. These are the kind of sobs that hit her so hard that she thinks her soul might just be knocked right out of her; thinks that she might collapse on the ground if she doesn't sit down any time soon.

And these irrational thoughts aren't exactly made better by the fact that she has begun to hyperventilate in a way that make her face tingle and head feel woozy with oxygen loss.

That's the state she's in when she finds herself knocking on Tom's door, still in her gym clothes – and probably still smelling like sweat judging by how hot and damp she feels – but Tom answers the door with a smile, and she's always liked his smile.

They've kissed before, more than once, on the days that Chloe spent with him while Stacie was away. Chloe only spent two days with her family; Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, but there's only so many times she can listen to family members asking her if she has a stable job yet before she feels like she's going to turn into the hulk. So on the days that she normally spends with Stacie, she spends them with Tom, and Tom is really nice.

The first time it happened, they had been playing on Tom's Xbox before she left for Tennessee for Christmas, and she thought, at first, that maybe they had the potential to be boyfriend and girlfriend, because she was sat in between his legs and he was resting his head on top of hers and it felt really nice. It felt like she was in high school again.

He had kissed her after she killed him on COD, pinning her down to the floor as he tickled her, and she threw the controller on the sofa as his lips touched hers, and her hands found their way up to his neck, running through his hair and pulling him closer. He wasn't rough but he wasn't gentle, and it didn't last very long, but it still made Chloe feel like a teenager again.

It happened again the next day, after she brought him pizza and a pack of beers, and they made out on the couch, with her sat in his lap, until he told her that they needed to stop before he exploded.

And although they've come close, a few times, they've never actually had sex before, and there's something telling her that tonight is not the best idea, but the image is burned into her brain; Stacie's legs wrapped around some guy, both of them butt naked and fucking against the balcony. It's like no matter how many times she tries to get it out of her head, it grows and grows, until there's nothing else she can think about anymore.

Except, when she throws herself at Tom as soon as he answers the door, Tom kisses her back straight away and the picture is slowly shrinking.

She knows that she probably smells of sweat, but Tom's breath smells of eggnog and tastes like chocolate and he's already in his underwear, and she asks him if anybody is here and he tells her no, and then she's shoving her hand into his boxers.

He's still not gentle and he's still not particularly rough, but he strips her off slowly and she follows him into his bedroom as he holds her hand. He's crawling on top of her after she lays back on the bed, and his room smells like smoke and he has an Indiana Jones poster on his wall, but then he's hovering over her and telling her she's beautiful.

His fingers feel warm when they stroke her, and she closes her eyes to get rid of the picture of Harrison Ford staring down at her, and he kisses her neck gently.

He asks her if she's sure that she wants this and she says yes, God yes, and he doesn't ask her why this is happening, and she's glad because it'll remind her of what Stacie is currently doing right now, and she'd rather not think about that.

Except, when he kisses the corner of her mouth as he pushes into her, she's reminded of the way Stacie had kissed her there two weeks ago, and then she's crying.

She knows it's not fair on Tom, but she pushes him off of her and starts to look for her clothes, and she thinks that he'll be mad or at least a little frustrated, but he's just worried.

"Do you want to talk about it?" he asks her as he looks around for his underwear, and she shakes her head as she pulls her hair back in a ponytail.

"No," she shakes her head again. Maybe it'll get rid of the images. "Have you seen my bra?"

It comes out weak, and she knows this, and Tom knows this. So he puts a hand on her bare shoulder and he hugs her, and it's kind of awkward; the both of them naked, just hugging each other, and she can still feel how hard he is, and it's kind of comical. So much so that she laughs, and then he pulls back and smiles at her in a way that makes her feel so, _so_ safe.

She hugs him again when they're both dressed and tells him that she's really sorry, and he hugs her back twice as hard, and he kisses her on the top of her head and she feels loved. She knows _he's_ not mad, but _she's_ mad. Mad at herself for thinking that sleeping with somebody else would help her get over Stacie.

She kisses Tom again on her way out, telling him that she's sorry again, and he tells her that he'll always be there for her if she needs a shoulder to cry on, and she knows that he's not bothered about her turning him down. She knows that he cares about her.

When she's walking back home, the sun is low in the sky and it's around seven when she hears her phone ringing in her pocket.

"Hey," Chloe answers, surprised to hear the sound of music and people talking – some of them yelling – in the background.

"Ginger, hey!" Chloe smiles at the nickname, despite her feeling a little shitty earlier. "Where are you?"

"M'just on my way back home, why?"

"I'm home from PA, there's a party at mine, get your cute little butt over here!"

"I have work, Stace."

"Call in sick, I haven't seen you for weeks!"

She gulps, shaking her head, but Stacie hangs up before she can turn the offer down. She could just sneak into her apartment and get changed before heading to work early. Tell her that she couldn't call in sick because _Luke's_ was busy and they needed as many employees as they could due to it being a few days before New Year's Eve. But despite the jealousy, rage, and hurt, she kind of doesn't want to let Stacie down.

Curse her mother for teaching her to be so kind.

She calls in sick.

Her boss tells her to get well soon, and she feels even guiltier for lying.

* * *

Stacie is hammered when she gets home.

She can see her on the balcony talking to some blonde woman, who later introduces herself as Fat Amy. When Chloe asks her why she calls herself that, she tells her it's so skinny bitches like her don't do it behind her back, and Chloe has a feeling she's said that line before, but she doesn't say anything because she's too busy looking for Stacie, after she had disappeared when Chloe went upstairs to her room.

She's managed to shower and change into a dress, but she still feels like crap, and she hasn't even had chance to get a drink because Fat Amy had stopped her as soon as she stepped out onto the balcony. She wants to invite Tom along, to have at least one other person she knows here, but this is Stacie's party and that would be kind of rude.

Just as she's getting a drink out of Stacie's fridge, she squeals when she feels arms wrap around her waist, but she doesn't panic because she knows that scent anywhere.

"You're here!" Stacie yells over the sound of the guests in the kitchen, and Chloe puts on a smile as she turns around in Stacie's arms and rests her hands on her bare shoulders, suddenly feeling brave.

Stacie's wearing a black strapless tube dress that's hugging her in all the right ways, and it's kind of really hard to resist touching her, even if it does burn Chloe's fingertips.

"You're back," she says loudly, and Stacie is grinning as she pulls Chloe in for a hug, telling her she missed her.

She's still grinning when she pulls back.

Right now, Stacie's smile is a bright kind of green color that reminds Chloe of the trees in central park, and maybe that's why Chloe kisses her, because Chloe is a red fire blazing in Stacie's arms and she's always been a sucker for complementary colors.

When Stacie kisses her back, an explosion of different yellow pigments light up every dark corner inside of her.

She wishes it was midnight on New Year's Eve so then at least she'd have an explanation for why she kissed her when Stacie asks, but she doesn't have an explanation, and Stacie looks confused.

Chloe doesn't describe a lot of things as masterpieces, but she thinks the image of Stacie with swollen lips and dilated pupils, breathing heavily in front of her, is damn well close to one.

The only other person she's described as a masterpiece is Brad, the boyfriend she had all throughout high school – halfway through freshman year right up until her freshman year in college. Tom reminds her of Brad. Brad was careful and he always told Chloe that she was his angel. Chloe didn't particularly like that, because angels are associated with death, but she put up with it because he was Brad, and he really loved her.

She almost lost her virginity to him at her sophomore homecoming, but he could tell that she wasn't ready, so they watched TV until she fell asleep on top of him, with his fingers tangled in her hair. He was gentle in the way he would stroke her hair while she was sleeping, and rub his thumb across her shoulder when he hugged her, and he smelled like pine needles and Calvin Klein cologne.

They eventually made love in the back of Brad's car after their junior prom, and she told him that she loved him and he told her that she's the best thing that ever happened to him. They graduated together and spent the night after graduation dancing to Fleetwood Mac and telling each other how much they loved each other, and he was taller than her and sometimes if Chloe closed her eyes and rested her head against his chest, she could feel his heart beat. She could imagine them with a family. They went to the same college and he held her hand all of the time, even when he drove her to Del Taco for their anniversary, even when she was complaining about period pains in the middle of the night, and even when she met his parents for the first time.

He held her hand like he held her heart.

And he died in Chloe's freshman year of college, when he was driving from Atlanta down to Tallahassee to visit his grandma. Chloe spent nights on end clutching his Barden sweatshirt in her hands, crying herself to sleep, until Ashley and Jessica had to physically force her out of bed to go to class.

Chloe thought she'd never recover.

She thought that nothing like him would ever come along.

But then she met Beth in senior year, and Chloe knew it wouldn't last but Beth did things with her tongue that made Chloe forget about everything in the world. Beth was an acapella nerd like her, and she joined the Bellas with her, Lilly, Ashley, and Jessica, and they all really liked her.

They never outright said that they were girlfriends, but they damn well acted like it. Chloe met Beth's parents at thanksgiving only three months after they met, and she spent almost every night muffling her moans into Beth's hair, as they had sex in her childhood bedroom. It wasn't particularly one of her proudest moments, but Beth looked at her like she put the stars in the sky, and Chloe loved her.

They only dated, or whatever it is they did, for eight months, and they knew they wouldn't be dating for another eight months because they were graduating college, and not all college romances last. On their last night together before they left Barden, Beth gave her a necklace that she still owns – it's stashed in the jewelry box in the drawer next to her bed – and Chloe gave Beth an orgasm and one of those smiles that Chloe knew would get the message across. That she loved her. That she's grateful for the time they spent together. That this was it.

Beth wasn't a masterpiece like Brad was, but she was close.

And now there's Stacie Conrad, who Beth and Brad can only dream of living up to, and she's not sure she's in love with Stacie but she thinks that she could be, one day.

But after kissing her, Stacie tells her to mingle and make friends, and then she's walking away and getting lost in the crowd that's cramped inside her small loft. Chloe classes that as being turned down, and maybe she's in a mood for the rest of the night. Maybe she wants to go back to Tom and tell him to fuck her until she forgets her name – until she forgets Stacie's name – but she knows that it won't help.

While she's moping on Stacie's couch getting drunk by herself, she meets a girl called Cynthia Rose who somehow immediately knows who she is because she tells her that she's Stacie's co-worker and she constantly talks about her at school. Chloe tries not to smile at that, but it's kind of hard.

Cynthia tells her about her fiancé, Denise, who is currently at a conference in Florida because she's a lawyer, and hearing about all these people with real jobs and real lives and real significant others is making Chloe kinda sad. So she excuses herself, puts her beer down on the kitchen table and makes her way to Stacie's bathroom.

"Get yourself together, Beale," she tells herself as she rests her hands on the side of the sink and looks in the mirror.

Her reflection is a little blurry, due to the amount of alcohol she's drunk tonight, but she'd rather everything be blurry than her be completely sober and hyper-aware of the fact that Stacie had turned her down. Because despite her being still upset over it, she knows for a fact that if she was sober right now she'd be overanalyzing it like she normally does, and she doesn't really need that right now.

 _You awake?_ She texts Beca. She replies straight away.

 **Becs:** _Yeah, you?_

 **Chloe:** _Duh._

 **Becs:** _What's up?_

Stacie is what's up, she wants to say.

 **Chloe:** _Nothing, just miss you._

 _I'll be home in three days._ Beca texts back, immediately followed by an airplane emoji.

 **Chloe:** _Dork. How's Jesse?_

 **Becs:** _Annoying._

 **Becs:** _His brother keeps asking me when we're gonna start dating._

 **Chloe:** _Sounds horrific._

 **Becs:** _You have no idea._

 **Becs:** _I'm tired._

She sends back a heart emoji and tells Beca to go to sleep.

And she's just managed to compose herself when she hears the door handle being unlocked and she turns around to see Stacie coming into the bathroom, locking the door again immediately.

"How did you get in?"

"It's my apartment, Chloe, I know how to open my bathroom door from the outside."

Chloe is about to ask her to teach her that someday, but Stacie is gulping down the rest of her drink out of her red solo cup, and Chloe is very aware of the way Stacie's neck is stretched up and just how kissable it looks.

She thinks about Beca and Emily, and how she's never got the urge to kiss either of them like this before. She thinks about Beth, and how if Chloe closes her eyes, she can imagine that it's her in front of her, and not Stacie.

"Slow down tiger," Chloe says, and Stacie finishes the rest of it before throwing the cup down and it lands in the bathtub but Chloe's eyes are still on Stacie's neck.

She can't imagine this is Beth, because Stacie is Stacie. She's nothing like Beth.

"You kissed me."

Chloe nods.

She thinks Stacie's about to say something else, judging by the way her mouth opens and closes a few times, but she passes that off as just being drunk, and then suddenly the yellow pigmented explosions are back again as Stacie kisses her.

Only, they're slowly turning into oranges and darker shades of yellow and even specks of red, and Chloe realizes that she's into this way more than Stacie is because there's not a single shade of Stacie's green in there.

Chloe finds out that Stacie is rough, unlike Brad and Tom and Beth.

As in, she's pretty sure she's gonna have bruises in the morning.

Stacie pushes her against the sink, and her hands are on Chloe's thighs as she sucks her bottom lip. She pushes up on the bottom of Chloe's dress until it's around her waist, and her hands waste no time in roaming their way around Chloe's back, sliding down until she's cupping the back of her thighs as she lifts her up onto the sink.

And Chloe's about to tell her that they're probably gonna end up breaking something – the sink, their backs, their hearts – but Stacie is breathing heavily into her mouth and she tastes like vodka, and she's lifting her up so her legs are wrapped around her waist and then she's turning around and pressing her into the wall opposite the sink.

She's surprised by her strength, but at the same time she's not at all, because she's seen Stacie working out on the balcony as she listens to Top 40.

It still kind of hurts her back when she pulls back and then slams her into the wall again.

She's also not surprised when a moan escapes her mouth as Stacie grinds her hips into her.

Stacie is breathing heavily into her neck now, and Chloe's hands are gripping onto Stacie's shoulders like a lifeline, and she thinks that maybe this is as far as they're going to get, because Stacie doesn't seem to be showing any signs of moving on any time soon.

Chloe doesn't really want to move on either, but not in the way that Stacie doesn't.

Except Stacie does move on, and her hand roams down Chloe's side – with her other still holding Chloe up – and she strokes over her hipbone and down her navel, and they slip into Chloe's underwear before she even has a chance to prepare herself.

She didn't realize how cold Stacie's fingers were until she pushes two of them inside her.

And it's awkward, the way one of Chloe's legs falls down to keep her standing, and the other leg is wrapped around Stacie's waist, and Stacie's not kissing her on the lips – just her neck, collarbone, chest, the swell of her breasts above her neckline – and oh God, she pushes Chloe's other leg down so she's standing properly, and she drops down to her knees.

Maybe another masterpiece is the way Stacie looks between her legs, so disheveled and so beautiful.

She uses the hand that was originally holding Chloe up to lift her leg over her shoulder, and Chloe throws her head back when she feels Stacie's breath on her, doing things to her that exceeds every ounce of pleasure that she knows that Tom could ever give her.

She thinks she moans when Stacie finally attaches her mouth, but she kind of doesn't really know anything right now because this all feels too good. So good, that she comes with Stacie's name on her lips, admittedly quite embarrassed by how quick Stacie manages to get her off.

She's able to stand up on two legs though, and she thinks that Stacie is going to give in to her, let her return the favor, but then she stands up and pulls away. She sees the doubt in Stacie's eyes just as she moves in to kiss her, and suddenly the masterpiece is ruined and she's rushing out of the bathroom.

Chloe's never described someone as a masterpiece more than once.

Maybe that's how she knows she's in way too deep.

* * *

When she sees Stacie on the balcony when she gets back from the gym the next morning, she almost leaves again. But it's early and Stacie is just sat down on Chloe's little bench and she looks sad, so she musters up the courage she should've had last night, and she walks outside.

"Hey," she says, standing in the doorway. "You look like crap."

"I feel like crap."

Chloe smiles, moving to sit down next to Stacie, taking a sip of her coffee. She smiles even bigger when Stacie takes the coffee off of her and drinks a bit of it, handing it back to Chloe without a word.

But the smile falls off her face when Stacie says, "about last night…" and she knows what's coming.

 _It was a mistake._

 _It shouldn't have happened._

 _We were drunk._

 _We didn't know what we were doing._

 _I'm not in love with you._

 _We're just friends._

"I'm sorry I freaked out and left."

Chloe frowns, turning her head to look at Stacie, but Stacie is looking down at the ground.

She tells her it's okay, and Stacie's rambling, telling her that she doesn't regret it at all, but it shouldn't have happened, but she's glad that it did because she's been wanting to sleep with Chloe since they met, but she doesn't like her in that way, and it's kind of giving Chloe whiplash.

"Why did it take so long?"

"I was scared. You're special."

Chloe kisses Stacie on the cheek, and she's pretty sure she can hear the butterflies flapping their wings in Stacie's stomach.

And then the butterflies are in her own stomach, when Stacie turns her head and kisses her again.

The yellows. The reds. The greens. She doesn't even know which color is which anymore.

Stacie kisses her desperately, and she leads her inside to Chloe's bed. Chloe wants to ask her what they're doing – _why_ they're doing this again – but Stacie could change her mind at any moment and she's been thinking about the image of Stacie in her bed for months now.

She wants this.

She wants to be selfish again.

They manage to strip their clothes off fully this time, and Stacie doesn't take her against the wall like last night. She takes her – wholly and completely – under the thin sheets on Chloe's bed, and it's cold but the feeling of Stacie's skin against her own is enough warmth she needs.

Chloe's never been one for talking dirty but Stacie makes her do a lot of things that she's not particularly an expert in.

"Touch me," she breathes out, when Stacie's hand strokes up her thigh.

"That feels so good," she moans, as she feels Stacie's tongue working inside of her.

"Don't stop–fuck, oh my God, don't stop," she whimpers, and then she's moaning Stacie's name as her hips lift up off of the bed and her orgasm pulses through her.

Stacie's moans are music to Chloe's ears, and when she sits up, straddling Chloe's waist as she grinds down onto her, Chloe thinks that nothing in the world can compare to this moment.

She holds her breath as she feels Stacie's hands rest on her stomach, before she slowly slides them both up to cup her breasts, grinding down on her again. And Chloe whimpers, already feeling like she's close again. She feels like such a guy right now, with a girl grinding on top of her, and her hands gripping the girl's hips as she tries not to come, but this isn't just any girl.

This is the masterpiece that is Stacie Conrad, and she's never seen as much yellow and green in her vision as she does right now.

The nerves in her body feel like a live wire; like one touch from Stacie will send her over the edge again, and she's not even the one being touched properly right now. One of the hands gripping Stacie's hips finally catches up with Chloe's brain, and she moves it over her hipbone, across Stacie's V-line, until she can feel Stacie lift herself up slightly and lean forward.

And then they're kissing again, and one of Stacie's hands is resting on the pillow beside her head as the other is leading Chloe's hand to her center, and she feels like she's going to explode when Stacie bites her bottom lip.

"Please," Stacie whispers into her mouth, and maybe it's the urgency in her voice or maybe it's because Chloe will do absolutely anything right now if it means Stacie will carry on kissing her, but she finally touches Stacie where she's been wanting to touch her forever now, and the moan that Stacie lets out into her mouth is enough to urge her on.

The difference between Chloe and Stacie, is that Stacie doesn't come with Chloe's name on her lips.

* * *

Chloe's gathered that they have some sort of no strings attached arrangement going on. She doesn't like to call it friends with benefits, because she and Stacie are _not_ friends, and she's not sure they ever have been or ever will be.

"Come here," Stacie will say to her, and Chloe will be over in the blink of an eye; whether it's to help Stacie pour shots, show her how to use the microwave, or take off her clothes.

"You're a great kisser," Stacie will say, pinning Chloe against the wall.

"I need you," she tells her at five minutes to midnight on New Year's Eve.

Chloe's New Year's kiss is on Stacie's stomach, as she kisses her way down her body for the fourth time that night.

When Chloe, Emily, and Benji pick Jesse and Beca up from the airport, Beca runs into Chloe's arms with a huge smile, wrapping her arms and legs around her as they spin around in circles and Chloe peppers her face with kisses.

It feels really nice, to have a girl in her arms who doesn't make her feel unloved.

Jesse hugs her tightly, and tells her that he missed her, and he asks about Stacie and Chloe has to stop herself from blurting everything out like she had done to Emily and Benji when they got home yesterday, two weeks after the arrangement started. She had told them everything; that her and Stacie have something going on. And even though Stacie is also sleeping with other people, Chloe thinks it's okay, because she's the one that Stacie comes home to every night.

Sometimes Chloe sleeps with Tom as well, and he doesn't ask her anything about Stacie because he knows that if she starts talking, she'll never stop.

Benji tells her to be careful.

Emily tells her that she's worried.

Beca spends the night at Chloe's place telling her everything about her Christmas, and how while she was there she got an email from a club that wants to play some of her mixes. Beca shows Chloe her mashups, and she notices that the folder is named 'private', which makes her feel kind of special. That Beca is showing her some private mixes.

She doesn't have a shift tonight, but they still go to _Luke's_ and order Hawaiian pizza and fries, and Beca pays for it even though Chloe gets discount. She tells her that it's payback for all the free pizza, and she tells Chloe that she doesn't mind spending money on her.

Chloe doesn't tell Beca about her thing with Stacie.

Chloe doesn't even think about Stacie that night.

Sometimes Beca reminds Chloe of Beth, because Beth was a sucker for bad jokes and puns, and when Beca tells Chloe, "I really like ceilings. I guess you could call me a... ceiling fan" and then she points to the fan on Chloe's roof, Chloe feels like maybe Beca is her best friend.

She doesn't want to hurt her best friend.

* * *

More weeks pass, and Chloe wants something.

She wants to call Stacie her girlfriend.

She wants to tell Tom that they're dating and that she's really happy.

She wants to tell Beca that Stacie makes her feel like nobody ever has before.

She wants Stacie to stop sleeping with other people.

She wants to stop imagining Stacie when she's having sex with Tom.

She wants Stacie to start a fight with her or yell and scream at her and tell her that she's fucked up somehow, simply so she'll have an actual reason to be heartbroken. But heartbreak is the whole problem here, and Chloe is already feeling it without Stacie needing to do anything.

She wants to cry. She does cry. She cries herself to sleep on the days that Stacie is out fucking somebody else.

She wants to be able to make Stacie feel like she makes her feel. Like she's on top of the world, without the need of them being naked in bed, or naked against the wall, or even fully clothed as they fuck in a restroom stall.

She wants the L-word.

She desperately wants something to lose.

"Open your eyes," Tom tells her one day. But that's the problem.

Her eyes are wide open and all she sees is Stacie.

The kissing, Chloe thinks, is the worst part of it all. The kissing is supposed to be the thing that Chloe can pretend is normal; can pretend isn't a chore. This kissing is supposed to be an escape. Something that she can get lost in and pretend that nothing else in that moment matters. The kissing reminds Chloe just how fucked up all of this is.

With every kiss, she measures just how much of her is breaking apart.

It takes three hundred and forty more kisses for Chloe to realize that she's completely in love with Stacie Conrad.

* * *

Chloe always likened life to a fairy tale, ever since she used to read stories to Caleb when they were young.

Brad was like a fairy tale.

Beth was the ending of a fairy tale.

Tom could have been one.

Brad called her angel, and Beth called her princess.

Stacie makes her feel like a princess too, on the odd occasion that they're not moaning each other's names.

Stacie is her prince charming.

Unfortunately though, somewhere between once upon a time and happily ever after, the princess is forgotten as prince charming goes off into the woods to get drunk with the wicked witch of the west; a blonde girl that goes by the name of Aubrey Posen, who is also a teacher and who is built like a Greek Goddess, whom Stacie had met while she was at home for Christmas.

Chloe knows that she'll never live up to that standard, but when Stacie tells her one night, that her and Aubrey aren't serious, as she presses her thigh into Chloe and makes her moan, Chloe feels like she's telling the truth. Maybe.

She never really liked fairy tales that much anyways.

* * *

One night at the end of January, Beca tells Chloe about how creepy her roommate is – a Korean girl named Kimmy Jin who Beca's pretty sure is planning to kill her – and she tells Chloe that she's thinking about looking for another place, and Chloe is telling her that she should move in with her before she can even register the words in her brain.

She thinks Beca will turn her down, but she's surprised to hear Beca ask her "are you sure?", and then a week later, Beca's putting up an IKEA bed in the spare room that used to be Chloe's study.

Chloe spends some nights with Stacie in Stacie's apartment, and Beca doesn't really ask about where she is. Sometimes Beca plays her mixes at a club a few blocks away, and sometimes Chloe goes to watch her with Stacie, Jesse, Emily, Benji, and Tom, but most of the time she stays home and let's Stacie fuck her until she can see stars.

On some of the nights that she does go watch Beca spin and Stacie doesn't tag along, Chloe knows that she's with Aubrey. She doesn't tell her, but she knows because Stacie always wears a certain perfume when she's with Aubrey; different to the one she wears when she's with Chloe or anybody else, and Chloe should've known that she'd end up falling second to someone else.

She knows it's not healthy to live like this, but she can't stop it.

Her problem is that she doesn't know _when_ to stop. Doesn't know when to just give up and let Stacie go. At the same time, she doesn't want to. She wants her in her life even if it breaks her heart. Wants Stacie to be her forever, even if it's just in her dreams.

* * *

Beca starts dating somebody the day after her twenty second birthday.

(It actually shocked Chloe that she's managed to go this long without knowing Beca's age. She would've never guessed that she was only one year older than her, and yes, Beca was offended when Chloe told her that she thought she was eighteen years old.)

Chloe made Beca a scrap book for her birthday. She bought a plain book from a DIY craft store a few blocks away, and she painted a picture of them two at the coffee shop on the front of it. She filled it with polaroids they've taken together over the past few months (or rather, ones that Chloe has taken of Beca, because Beca likes to pretend she doesn't like having her photo taken) and she writes pages and pages of the memories they've shared together.

Meeting at the coffee shop.

Singing at open mic nights.

Eating pizza from _Luke's_ and watching Game of Thrones.

Late night phone calls whenever Beca is out of town and Chloe has nobody in her bed.

Beca calls her mushy, but Chloe is proud of it, and Chloe can tell that Beca can tell that she's proud of it. So she hugs Chloe and tells her that she's gross but amazing, and Chloe takes it as a compliment. It's probably the best thing Beca's ever said to her.

Beca tells Chloe about her new girlfriend two months after they start properly dating, as the two of them are watching Boy Meets World reruns while drinking wine in their pajamas.

She wonders why it took Beca so long to tell her, but she doesn't worry too much about it. She knows Beca isn't always completely open with her, and she respects that.

Her name is Cora and she works at a phone company.

The job is not nearly as interesting as Beca makes it out to be, but Chloe lets her talk about her for hours, because Beca's drunk and she only shares this kind of stuff when she's either drunk or it's late at night. She's not a talker – especially not about herself – so Chloe thinks that it's easier to just let Beca rant. It's cute, seeing her so happy.

They met when Beca was at the store getting some Advil for her hangover – because Chloe had insisted on tequila shots – and Beca had managed to grab the last box of Advil before Cora. The way Beca had told the story made it much more interesting, but basically; their eyes met. Both were taken away by their beauty. Beca tried to suppress her feelings. Cora told her that maybe they could share the box. Beca invited her for coffee. Blah, blah, blah.

Like a movie. Which is ironic, because Beca hates movies.

Chloe's not bitter about it.

Except, a month later when Beca blows her off to hang out with Cora, Chloe is totally bitter about it.

They were supposed to go to an art exhibit at the museum, just the two of them, but Beca had called her saying that Cora was leaving to visit her family in Canada the next morning and they wouldn't see each other for another two months.

And Chloe was fine with it, honestly.

Stacie was at work, Benji and Jesse had to look after the coffee shop, and Emily had something important to tend to, because apparently she couldn't answer Chloe's calls. It was fine.

So Chloe took Tom with her, and he held her hand around the entire time, and Chloe made sure to tell him that this wasn't a date; they were just here as friends. Tom was fine with that, which made Chloe feel a little better about being blown off by all of her friends.

Tom didn't particularly listen when Chloe started talking about all the different paintings – honestly, the only input he gave was that one of the paintings looked like a medieval orgy – but Chloe thought it was nice, being with somebody who didn't make her feel like she should be trying too hard.

Of course, they ended up stumbling over Tom's threshold afterwards, seeing who could rip the other's clothes off faster.

"You sure?" Tom asked her as Chloe pulled him on top of her.

All she could do was nod and hope to God that Stacie didn't pop into her mind.

She did, obviously.

Stacie always pops into her mind.

* * *

She's a beggar for the bits and pieces of love that Stacie can't give her.

And she's not exactly sure when it started.

Maybe it went like this. She woke up, went to brush her teeth, and she might've glanced in the mirror and said to herself; "I'm in love with her." She didn't pause, because it wasn't a shock to her, really. Maybe she always has been, ever since Stacie complimented her singing on the first day they met. Maybe she always will be. When she dropped her toothbrush into the sink, she convinced herself that there's still oxygen in the room, and she said; "Okay. I'm in love with her."

And maybe it's the kind of love she wants, but not the kind of love she needs.

Stacie doesn't know that Chloe's in love with her. She doesn't know that Chloe doesn't sleep with anybody else anymore except Tom, on the odd occasion she can get Stacie out of her mind long enough to take control. Stacie doesn't realize how long Chloe spends crying in bed at night, trying not to be too loud in case she wakes Beca up. She doesn't know that most nights Chloe spends with Tom, it's with a movie on TV and a tub of ice cream, as she leans her head on his shoulder and tries to imagine that it's Stacie's arm around her instead of his. She doesn't know that Chloe wakes up every day hoping that Stacie will love her.

Except whenever she tries to run away, she thinks of Stacie, and how maybe one day she'll love her. And then whenever she tries to run _to_ Stacie, she just sees her back facing her.

Every single time.

Stacie's not the kind of girl that falls in love, and Chloe can accept that, she can. Stacie has reminded her countless times, that this arrangement they have going on is simply platonic, and she can't stand the thought of being in love; being tied down to somebody else.

"There's no freedom," she says.

"It sounds so boring," she tells her.

"Why be in love when you can just fuck someone without dealing with the consequences of hurting them if something goes wrong?"

That last one made Chloe laugh. How ironic.

And maybe Chloe doesn't want to accept it. Maybe the thought of it burns her from the inside out, until her skin is scorched to the degree of her hair, but she knows it isn't just her, it isn't Chloe she can't fall in love with, it's people in general. Which is strange to think about, because Chloe can't stand the thought of not having somebody by her side who loves her for the rest of her life.

But Stacie is not the kind of girl that falls in love, and Chloe has to accept that.

And it wasn't exactly either of their fault when the line between friendship and more was twisted and mangled, and it's not Chloe's fault that she convinced herself that maybe Stacie was finally going to break it.

Because Stacie was still sleeping with Aubrey, and Chloe was still sleeping with a broken heart.

* * *

Beca finds out about Chloe and Stacie's arrangement when she walks in to the apartment to see them making out on the couch.

Chloe doesn't even realize she's there until she hears keys drop onto the floor, and Beca is averting her gaze and telling them to put a sock on the door next time. She's joking around, but Chloe has a feeling that she's mad.

After kissing Stacie again, a few more times, and telling her that she'll call her, Chloe goes into Beca's room to see her already sat against the headboard with her laptop and her headphones on. She takes them off when she sees Chloe, and she closes her laptop and slides it to the end of the bed.

"Can I come in?"

"You never ask if you can come in."

Chloe smiles, and she sits on the bed where Beca normally sleeps.

"You're mad at me."

"You're dating Stacie."

"We're not dating, it's just sex."

Beca breathes out a sigh, and Chloe wonders why she's so upset about it all.

But then Beca asks her why she didn't tell her, because they're best friends and they're supposed to tell each other everything, and Chloe sighs as she shifts to sit cross-legged in front of Beca.

She tells her that they've been sleeping with each other since before New Year, and Beca asks her, again, why she didn't tell her, and honestly Chloe doesn't really have an answer. Practically all of her friends know – even her boss knows – but for some reason, she never got around to telling Beca.

It's not that she hasn't got around to telling her though, and Chloe knows that. She hadn't told Beca on purpose, because if Beca knew, things would change. Beca wouldn't be at the apartment as often as she is – which isn't very often, considering she's always with Cora – and Beca would start inviting Stacie to more of the clubs she's spinning at, and those times are the only times when Chloe can be somewhere that doesn't remind her of Stacie.

"I didn't want things to change," Chloe says.

"You mean a lot to me, Becs, I didn't mean to keep it from you for this long," she promises.

"I don't love her," she tells her, when Beca asks if there's anything more.

She hates lying to Beca. Almost as much as she hates herself when she goes crawling back to Stacie that night.

* * *

Beca is upset with Cora being away.

Chloe can tell because she's listening to a lot more Sam Smith than usual, and her mixes are much slower and softer, compared to her regular stuff.

It's been three and a half weeks since she left for Canada, and Chloe has never seen Beca sulking over something before, so she knocks on Beca's door and waits for her to tell her to come in like she usually does. It's silent in the room though, and Chloe doesn't hear Beca's voice, so she knocks again.

No response.

She presses her ear to the door and listens, and she guesses that Beca is on the phone or something, because she can hear parts of a one-sided conversation.

 _"Nothing going on … just a friend … work has been kicking my ass … I miss you … don't be like that … I didn't mean to make you feel bad … you can't do that … fine, whatever … don't … that's it then? … okay, whatever … not me … I know … bye."_

She opens the door slowly, looking inside the room to see Beca shutting her laptop and taking her headphones off.

"You okay?"

Beca nods, standing up and walking towards Chloe, sliding out of the room and into the kitchen.

"Is something wrong?"

"I think Cora and I just broke up."

"Oh," she walks over to Beca and puts a hand on her shoulder, smiling when Beca leans into her touch.

She's not quite sure how they found themselves curled up on the couch a half hour later, eating pizza that Chloe had managed to get for free even though it's her night off. They're watching Mean Girls, because apparently it's law to watch it after a break up because it makes you feel so much better about your life. Chloe's not quite sure where she heard that, but she's been going by that rule her whole life – or, ever since she discovered the movie – and Beca doesn't seem to be arguing.

Beca said her reason for the break-up is that it just wasn't working out, but Chloe's known Beca for a year now, and she knows when Beca is lying.

"You can sit here and lie to my face, or you can tell me the truth about what happened."

"What, like you're so honest all the time."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing, it doesn't matter."

Chloe tries to ignore the rapidness of her heartbeat at the thought of Beca being upset with her.

* * *

A week later she finds herself with Stacie for the first night in a week, because Stacie's been drowning in homework to grade, and mock tests to make, and Aubrey. Beca is working a late shift at the coffee shop, so she had called Stacie immediately, telling her to come round.

Stacie's on her back with Chloe on top of her, her mouth sucking at the bit of skin that connects Stacie's neck to her collarbone, as her fingers work wonders on Stacie and makes her moan louder than Chloe has ever heard her. Not that she can say anything, because she's pretty sure her voice is hoarse from the volume of her own moans, as Stacie matches her thrusts, bucking into her every time Chloe's fingers touch a particularly sensitive spot.

They're both close, Chloe can feel it. Rising up in the pit of her stomach, and spreading around her like fire.

She curls her fingers inside Stacie again, pulling back to see the line of hickey's she's left on her collarbone. She knows not to leave them on her neck, because the kids at school will see them, but Stacie doesn't say anything about the collarbones.

When Stacie arches her back, Chloe feels like the arm holding her up is going to give way. But she pushes faster, grinds down deeper, and she loves her harder.

Her head is buried in Stacie's shoulder now, and when Stacie clenches around her fingers, moaning and gasping heavily, Chloe breathes out a barely audible "I love you", and the words aren't registering in her mind until Stacie is pushing her off of her and looking at her like she's just told her she's pregnant.

"Chloe, did you just… Jesus Christ. What?"

She figures that it's out in the open now, so she might as well tell her.

She always said she wanted something to lose.

"Don't freak out, okay?" she pulls the cover up over her chest, despite the fact that they've seen each other naked countless times before. "I just… I love you. I have for a while. You're just," she breathes out a sigh. "You're amazing, and you're one of the best people in my life right now, and I've never had anybody make me feel the way you do."

"You mean that?"

"Of course."

Stacie runs a hand through her hair, blinking down at the bed sheets. "I mean," she shakes her head, "I knew you thought I was attractive but who doesn't? You love me?"

Chloe nods as she sits up so she's on both of her knees in front of Stacie, and she places her hands on her shoulders, and she pulls her in to kiss her and it's not like before.

She regrets it immediately.

She feels guilty.

Stacie's lips taste like remorse.

"I really do. I love you, and not in the way that I love Beca or Emily or Tom. I'm _in_ love with you."

"You're not. You can't be."

"I am."

"Chloe, you… no, you can't."

"Stacie," She's begging, she knows she is, and she probably looks crazy now but she can't stop it. Stacie makes her crazy. "Why won't you let me love you?"

"I just… I'm not someone who people fall in love with," she sighs, pushing Chloe's hands off of her shoulders and standing up. "I can't fall in love with people."

"I can teach you."

"I'm sorry, Chloe," she shakes her head. "I love you, okay, but not like that. You deserve someone who can love you properly. Who's not afraid of giving you everything," she breathes out a sigh, wiping the corner of her eye with her finger as she starts to get dressed. "You need someone who will stop at nothing to make you happy and you deserve to settle for no less than that."

"You're not willing to do that for me?"

"I can't give you enough."

"You don't have to."

Stacie shakes her head, pulling her sweater over her head, and Chloe is up on her feet in front of her. She knows that there's tears streaming down her face, but she doesn't care. All she can see is Stacie.

"I just need you to stay," Chloe whispers.

But Stacie is shaking her head again, prying Chloe's hands off of her and telling her that she can't, she can't, she can't.

* * *

Tom tells her that he's sorry, and that he'll always be here for her if she needs him. She appreciates that.

She kisses him on the cheek, and tells him that there's no need to worry. She's fine.

Except, she's not fine.

When she gets home from his apartment after playing video games all day, to see Stacie leaning against the balcony with her head in her hands, she remembers that night all those months ago when all this started, and she's sliding the door open before she can even think about what she's doing.

"I don't need you to be in love with me," she tells Stacie, before Stacie can even realize she's there.

"What?"

"I love you, but that doesn't mean we have to stop all of this. We can still be friends, and you can still let me fuck you until three in the morning. I'll get over you."

Stacie shakes her head, and Chloe takes a small step forward, putting her hand over the hand that Stacie has resting on the railing. She strokes a thumb over her skin, and she watches her. Watches the way her head falls forward, and watches the way her eyes squeeze shut, and Chloe recognizes it as one of the ways she stops herself from crying.

She steps closer, but then Stacie is pulling away.

"Can I be honest with you?"

Chloe nods.

"I don't know if we can carry on after this."

"I've changed my mind, lie to me."

"Chloe."

"Please don't–"

"–I can't," Stacie interrupts, putting more space between them. "I can't carry on sleeping with you when I know that you like me. I can't. It's too selfish of me."

"What are we, in eighth grade? I don't just have a _crush_ on you Stacie."

"And that's the reason why I can't carry on," she breathes out a long sigh, running both of her hands through her hair.

She looks beautiful.

That annoys Chloe the most.

"I'm sorry, Chloe."

"Can you at least give me a reason why you won't give us a chance?"

And Chloe sees it. It's gone a split second later, but it's there. The flash of regret in Stacie's eyes – the one that Chloe recognizes as the look she wears when she's lying. And she doesn't know how, but maybe it's the way their eyes meet when Stacie looks at her from across the balcony. No worries. No limitations. Just the two of them being honest with each other. She knows that there's somebody else.

"You're in love with Aubrey, aren't you?"

"Chloe, you have to know that I never meant–"

"–You never meant to hurt me, right, I know." She sucks in a deep breath through her teeth, and she looks out at the city. It's so beautiful on a night time, and sometimes if she thinks hard enough, she can imagine she's somewhere else.

Maybe somewhere where there's no such thing as love, or heartbreak, or Stacie Conrad.

Of course, she wouldn't want to live in a world without Stacie Conrad, so she tears her eyes away from the skyline, and she looks at her. Looks at the person who seems to have crushed her whole world in a matter of just a few sentences.

"Can you just," Chloe gulps, tucking a stray bit of hair behind her ear. "Can you tell me what she has that I don't?"

"Chloe, it's not you–"

"–It's not me, it's you, got it. I just want to know why."

"Chloe."

"I just… God, I really thought that we could be happy together, you know?" she laughs. "You made me feel like I was the best thing in your life, and then… and then Aubrey comes along and she," she shakes her head and closes her eyes. She knows she's about to cry, but she's managed to go this long, so she holds them back, opening them to see Stacie looking down at the ground. "She's a really lucky girl, you know."

And then Stacie is crying, and she's telling Chloe that she'll call her later as she walks back into her loft, sliding the door shut behind her.

* * *

She doesn't call her.

Admittedly, it's only been about three hours, but still.

She had texted Tom straight afterwards, _I told her._

 **Tom:** _No follow-up emojis? Things went bad, didn't they?_

 **Chloe:** _She's in love with somebody else._

 **Tom:** _You want me to come round with ice cream?_

 **Chloe:** _No, I want to be alone. Thanks._

 **Tom:** _Love you, Chlo-bear, you know that._

She had smiled, and thought that maybe in another life, her and Tom would be the princess and prince charming, and they'd live happily ever after. They'd be quite a match. Nothing but them, playing COD and eating ice cream in their underwear.

 **Chloe:** _Love you._

She had managed to migrate to her bed, and she's still laid in it with her eyes trained up at the ceiling even when Beca gets home from work. And she can hear Beca trying to be quiet as she makes her way around the loft, making sure to dodge the pieces of art Chloe has scattered around, and she hears the fridge open and close, and she hears Beca softly humming along to something Chloe's not familiar with.

She puts on a pair of shorts and one of Tom's t-shirts that she stole a while ago, and she goes downstairs to see Beca leaning against the counter on her phone.

"Hey," she says, making her presence clear, and Beca frowns as soon as she looks up at her.

"What's wrong?" she asks, immediately moving to stand in front of Chloe. "You've been crying."

"Stacie just left. She just left me." Beca's hand is on her shoulder, rubbing it gently. "I love her, Becs. She just left me, and I love her."

"You really do, don't you?"

She nods.

"Hey. You do know that I'm here. Always. I'll just…" Beca pauses, letting go of Chloe's shoulder and dropping her arm to her side. She thinks about it for a second, Chloe can see in her eyes, but she eventually takes Chloe's hand and pulls her a little closer.

It makes Chloe feel warm.

"I'll just always be here."

And then Beca asks if she's gonna be okay when she doesn't say anything, and she's about to say yeah, she's fine, nothing is wrong, everything is okay. But Beca is looking at her with so much worry that something seems to settle deep in Chloe's gut, and she bursts into tears, almost collapsing in to Beca's arms when Beca hugs her.

They're on the couch watching a movie again – Bring It On this time, the only movie that Beca actually likes – and it feels a lot like last week, except Beca is the one comforting her this time, and it settles in that Stacie has technically just broke up with her.

She doesn't watch the movie.

Instead, she's thinking about how it's kind of funny, that she and Beca come home to each other every day, and not once have they really talked about their relationships with other people. Chloe doesn't talk about Stacie or Tom, and Beca hasn't talked about Cora since they broke up last week – honestly, she didn't do much talking about her while they were dating either.

She supposes it's because Beca doesn't like to talk about it, but then again, she hasn't actually asked.

She realizes, how she hasn't been the best friend that Beca deserves.

They're kind of both a mess, which makes her feel like maybe it should always be like this. Just the two of them coming home to each other and curling up on the couch. The two of them against the world, with no complications and no fights.

But Beca is her _friend_ , and it's too weird to think about that.

Unrequited love is a classy bitch, which Chloe has had to learn the hard way. It destroys you carefully and makes you suffer to the point where you wonder if someone is actually capable of suffering that much. It still keeps you there, though, hanging, waiting for a miracle. A miracle that never comes. Because Stacie will never love her back, and Chloe thinks that she's starting to make her peace with that.

Sort of.

(Not really.)

But it's only been a few hours, so she thinks maybe now is a little too soon to be moving on.

Except Beca is here, her arm wrapped around her shoulders and her breath on her forehead, and it's nice. It feels like hope.

Beca isn't a color wheel like Stacie is. Beca is simply black and white, which Chloe thinks is easy. Simple. Straightforward. She thinks that maybe if she wasn't in love with Stacie, she could love Beca. She could learn to.

Chloe is colorful, but not in the way that Stacie is. When Chloe and Stacie kiss, they're always a mixture of reds and greens and yellows. Chloe is always giving everything she can, and Stacie is never giving enough. Maybe Chloe should've noticed that the first time they kissed, but Stacie's face and body was blocking her view, and has been for the past year now.

When Beca kisses Chloe that night, her hands warm on her cheeks, all Chloe can see is a big mess.

Beca Mitchell is a color that Chloe has never seen before in her life. Maybe that's why she pushes Beca away, because she hates change. She hates new things.

And of course, Beca is her _friend_.

"Chloe–"

"Really?" she interrupts, watching as Beca shrinks in on herself. "You're gonna do this right now, right after me and Stacie just broke up?"

"You… weren't even dating in the first place."

"So?"

"So, I…" Beca runs a hand through her hair, and Chloe notices it as one of her nervous habits, along with biting her nails. "I'm sorry, but do you think I just go around kissing people for no reason?"

"What are you saying?"

"I'm saying that… You're just– _fuck_ , Chloe. You're _amazing_. I don't understand why anybody would want to hurt you."

"What?"

"Stacie is an idiot for giving up on you," she says. "I just want to… I don't know, I guess I just want to make you feel like you're not the worst person in the world, no matter what you might be thinking right now."

She wonders when on earth Beca managed to just _get_ her like this, without having to study Chloe too hard.

And everything seems to wash over her all at once. The back rubs that Beca gives her after she comes home from work. The whispered "I'm proud of you" when Chloe tells her she sold another piece of art. The little gifts she buys because "it reminded me of you." The way that Beca doesn't seem to tell secrets to anybody else. The way that Benji and Jesse and Emily joke that they're like an old married couple. The way that Beca lets her listen to her mixes before they're even finished. The times when Beca invites her up to the booth when she's spinning at a club, and always lets Chloe pick the next song, yet whenever Jesse so much as goes near the booth, she turns into some sort of protective mother over her equipment.

She's seen the way Beca looks at her.

It's the same way she looks at Stacie.

It just never really registered in her mind until now.

"Becs, do you… are you?"

"Look, I'm not proclaiming my love for you or anything, okay? You're my best friend. I just really like you, and I… I don't know, I just hate seeing you hurt."

When she falls into bed with Beca, seeing nothing but blacks and whites and greys, she wonders when everything became so God damn complicated.

She should've known that she'd get her heart broken again.

It's kind of what Chloe does best.

But Beca is gentle, and not the same type of gentle as Tom or Brad or Beth. Beca kisses Chloe like she's the source of her happiness, and if kissing Beca makes her happy then she'll kiss her until there's no more sadness left in the world.

She's shy, too, which Chloe's not surprised by. Chloe would find it adorable if they were dating and this was a sweet, heartfelt first time, and Chloe has to remind herself that it's not. This is just two friends relieving some stress.

Kissing Beca isn't complicated.

All she needs to do is close her eyes, open her mouth, and not think about Stacie. And she doesn't. She thinks about Beca, and Beca, and Beca, and all the moments leading up to this.

The first time they met. The first time they sang together at the coffee shop. The first time they went to an art exhibit together. The first time Chloe told Beca about her brother. The first time Beca was away for a few days and they texted none stop. The first time Chloe realized that Beca isn't just a friend, she's her best friend, and there's nothing else in the world that she cares more about.

Beca is an amazing kisser, and she feels good too. She's petite – the type that makes Chloe think she could break at any moment – which is why Chloe slows down slightly, kisses her more gently, grinds into her more slowly.

It's not because she has any feelings for Beca.

The only thing she's feeling now is turned on, because Beca is doing things with her mouth that almost makes Chloe forget to breathe.

But then she feels Beca kiss her on the lips again, and they're both breathing together, their bodies moving slowly and affectionately as they explore each and every dip and curve, memorizing everything down to a T.

That's all this is. Affection. There's no _I'm in love with you_ 's or _don't leave me_ 's.

It's comfortable.

She learns that Beca likes it when she grabs her hair, and she especially likes it when she leaves hickeys down her stomach and on her thighs. Beca's legs are thin and pale, and they look like works of art when Chloe pulls back, admiring her work there.

And Beca is breathing heavily, looking up at Chloe with a shy smile, and it makes Chloe's heart race and her finger tips tingle. And she hovers over Beca, running her fingers down her stomach and feeling the way her abs clench underneath her when she scratches slightly.

And then she moans, and it almost makes Chloe's face split with a grin, because it might be one of the best sounds she's ever heard come out of Beca's mouth.

When she pulls away from Beca – to take this all in; to help it settle in her mind – she sees just how beautiful Beca is this close. The lights are dim, but she can still see Beca's features clear as day. Her prominent cheekbones, her dark hair splayed against the pillow, her swollen lips, the dark blue color of her eyes that reminds Chloe of the galaxy, the slight blush on her neck and ears.

She's the most beautiful masterpiece that Chloe has ever seen.

"You're beautiful," Chloe tells her, and then Beca is grinning up at her, shaking her head.

"Now don't say that, I might end up falling in love with you."

She never considered sleeping with her best friend, but when she hears Beca moan as she pulls her closer that night, she thinks that this might be the start of something beautiful.

Maybe Stacie's not the masterpiece that Chloe has been hoping for.

Maybe it's been Beca all along.

* * *

It lasts six weeks, before most thoughts of Stacie breaking her heart are completely out of her mind. And not in a ' _who even is that girl I'm completely over it'_ kind of way, but in an ' _I'm actually really happy with my new friend who I sleep with and I don't need to be in love with somebody to be happy'_ kind of way.

Of course, she still thinks about her. It's kind of hard when she sees her almost every day.

She had checked Stacie's Facebook to see that she'd been tagged in a few photos, her and Aubrey making out in almost every single one of them. If that hadn't made her feel sick, the 'Stacie Conrad is now in a relationship with Aubrey Posen' is enough to.

And then suddenly the sunrise is ruined by the image of Stacie and Aubrey cuddled up on the balcony. Their balcony.

She never considered not waking up to watch the sunrise – honestly, she doesn't think she's missed one in years, except from the few times she's slept in – but when she looks out of her window at the sun, and all she sees is Stacie's face, it's kind of hard to carry on.

She starts to sleep in more.

She starts to watch the sunset.

Beca still sleeps in her own bed most of the time, but occasionally the two of them both get home from work around the same time, and they end up in bed together, falling asleep and cuddled up, nothing but smiles on their faces as they fall asleep satisfied.

And she knows it's kind of selfish.

She's doing to Beca exactly what Stacie did to her. Beca's not in love with her, but that's not the point. She kind of has a feeling that Beca knows she's not _completely_ over Stacie. She can feel it in the way that Beca catches her looking out of the window to see if she's on the balcony, or the way that whenever she paints, she can't seem to use any colors other than greens, reds, and yellows.

Beca will kiss her and tell her to come to bed, and it lasts about five minutes before Stacie is there, taking over every single corner of her brain, repeating the words "I don't love you like that" over and over and over.

But then all Beca has to do is kiss that spot underneath her earlobe, and all she can see is grey.

* * *

When Chloe first met Beca, she described her as a girl who doesn't care, a girl who'd rather be at home than socializing, and a girl who'd probably cut you if you said something bad about any famous DJ.

Now, when Chloe looks at Beca, all she sees is a tiny ball of love.

Somewhere along the line, Chloe knows that Beca falls in love with her. It's kind of obvious. Her demeanor changes completely, and she starts to take her time more when they're having sex. She makes sure to kiss every spot on Chloe's body, makes sure to tell her that she loves how long her fingers are, or how good her lips feel against hers, or how it's "pretty neat that their bodies fit together so well."

She's a dork, and Chloe thinks that maybe she could fall in love with her too.

And of course, these aren't particularly signs of falling in love with somebody, but when Chloe realizes that Beca is doing more things for her outside of the bedroom, she thinks that maybe what they're doing right now is more than just being friends with benefits.

It feels like a relationship.

Beca texts her cute pictures of puppies followed by a text saying "this lil guy made me think of you."

She buys cupcakes for Chloe simply because "she was in the neighborhood", but Chloe knows that the bakery that it shows on the box is at least a thirty minute drive away, and when Chloe tries paying her back she says, "no, no, it's my treat."

Beca tells her to have a good day at work, even though Chloe still works in the stupid pizza place up the street, and she knows how much Chloe hates it there. She still tells her though. Every single morning.

She sometimes even asks Chloe if she can kiss her when they're not in the bedroom, and she makes sure to take her time when Chloe lets her. Makes sure to run her fingers through Chloe's hair and pull her that little bit closer. Not too close, but just enough for their hips to be touching, and just enough for Chloe to realize that kissing Beca is one of her favorite things.

Beca gives Chloe her jacket when they're walking home from the movies, even if Chloe doesn't mention that she's cold. Beca just knows.

Beca likes to watch the sunset rather than the sunrise – because the only time Beca will be up at six in the morning is if she's been up all night – and Chloe's not a fan of sunsets but Beca makes them special. Beca makes Chloe forget about the wild fires spreading over the sky and the sky darkening mercilessly; instead she tells Chloe about the stars and sometimes Chloe is too busy looking at Beca to even notice the setting sun in the distance.

Beca is Chloe's favorite sunset.

She holds Chloe's hand, but she makes sure to ask her first. She always asks her. It reminds Chloe of Tom, and just how alike they are. Only she doesn't love Tom like she loves Beca. Tom doesn't make her feel like Beca does. She thinks that Tom is her soul mate, but maybe Beca is too, only in a more romantic sense.

When the two of them are going out to a club with Benji, Jesse, and Emily, and Chloe decides to wear a dress, Beca tells Chloe that she looks beautiful, and it makes Chloe's stomach do flips. And it's not just a quick 'wow you're pretty'. Beca makes sure to take all of Chloe in. Makes sure to watch her, memorize her, learn every single curve and dip and imperfection. She knows that Chloe has imperfections, but she tells Chloe that she's beautiful anyway, and Chloe always believes her because she says it with so much love and adoration.

Beca knows her coffee order, and she knows that Chloe cannot eat peanut butter sandwiches without the peanut butter to jelly ratio being perfect, and she makes Chloe dinner with wine and tells her, "eh, it was nothing", but Chloe knows that she spends hours on it. She does the dishes and she puts a blanket over Chloe when she falls asleep on the couch, and she opens doors for her and drives her to any new art exhibits in town, and when Chloe tells her that she appreciates it, Beca tells her that it's her pleasure and she'd do anything to make her smile.

When Beca presents Chloe with two plane tickets to Tennessee to see her parents on her birthday, Chloe realizes that _of course_. It's been there all along.

Beca Mitchell is in love with her.

Beca walks into a room and Chloe forgets how to breathe.

Maybe that's how she knows that she might possibly be in love with her too.

Instead of feeling scared, she feels like she's not alone.

Like she's home, maybe.

* * *

When Cora shows up at their apartment one day, Chloe feels like her whole world is crashing down on her again.

Which is weird, because she swore that happened the day Stacie told her she was in love with somebody else, but here she is, ready to have her heart broken again.

She should've told Beca the moment she realized it. She should've told her that she loves her, and that there's nobody else – not Tom, not Stacie, not Brad, not Beth, _nobody_ – that can make her feel the way Beca does.

But then Beca is telling her that she's heading out for lunch with Cora, and she's asking her if she'll be okay on her own, and Chloe wants to tell her _no, of course not, you're gonna end up falling in love with Cora all over again and moving out and I'll be alone forever._

"Yeah, I'll be fine. You go catch up," she says instead, and the smile that Beca gives her is enough to make her feel like maybe, just maybe, they could've worked out.

Maybe in another life, she wouldn't be too scared to admit her feelings.

And she almost goes back to Tom. She hasn't slept with him in months, but she still sees him, still plays video games and orders take out with him, and she wants to take all of her frustration out on him, because he's easy. He's the best platonic relationship Chloe has ever had. She really wishes she could be in love with him, because she knows that he wouldn't hurt her.

But sleeping with Tom would only make things worse, so she curls up on the couch and watches Desperate Housewives, and she calls Luke and tells him that she's sick, and she texts Tom instead.

 **Chloe:** _Do you think we'd make a good couple?_

 **Tom:** _Us?_

 **Tom:** _Or you and Beca?_

 **Chloe:** _Me and you. I think we'd make the best couple ever._

 **Tom:** _We'd be the hottest, for sure._

 **Chloe:** _Do you think if I'd never met Stacie, we would've fallen in love?_

 **Tom:** _I think what we have is perfect. We don't need to be in love, you dweeb._

 **Chloe:** _You love me though, right?_

 **Tom:** _You're the best, Chlo. You know I always will._

 **Chloe:** _Love you too._

Beca gets home at six, and Chloe doesn't even bother to lift her head up from the couch to look at her, because she knows that it'll hurt too much. She's probably smiling. She probably spent the best afternoon ever with Cora, and they're probably going on a second date tomorrow, and before they know it, they'll be married with three kids and a dog and a cat and a hamster, and Beca will always be her almost.

But then Beca's sitting on the couch, lifting Chloe's legs up so that they're resting on her lap, and she starts to stroke Chloe's leg as she watches the TV screen.

"What're we watching?"

"Desperate Housewives."

"Again? Don't you watch anything else?"

 _You_ , she wants to say. _I watch you. I try to push you out of my mind as much as I can because thinking about someone this much is kind of creepy, but when you laugh, when you smile, when you look at me; I might as well just accept that I am in love with you, and you're going to leave. Just like everybody else._

Instead, she says "nope", popping the P, and trying to ignore Beca's hands tapping a beat on her legs.

"Cora had a lot to say."

"Yeah?"

She sees Beca nod out of the corner of her eye, and then she listens to Beca telling her that Cora thinks that they should get back together because everything ended too fast, and she's ready to give Beca another chance – even though Beca hadn't done anything wrong in the first place – and she doesn't realize she's tearing up until Beca asks her what's wrong.

"Nothing, I just… m'just thinking about how you two are probably gonna end up being serious again and then you'll move out and there'll be nobody to make me dinner."

Beca laughs. "Chloe, I'm not getting back with Cora."

"What?" she looks at Beca, noticing how she's a little closer than she was before. And Chloe sits up, shuffling closer so she's basically sat on Beca's lap, but neither of them seem to mind.

"We're not back together. I told her that I'm over her."

"Why?"

"Because I am."

"But… okay, but why?"

She laughs again.

"I didn't get back with her because she's not you."

"What?"

"Come on," Beca smiles, entwining her right hand with Chloe's. "You should know by now that you're the only person I want."

"I…" Chloe shakes her head. "Can you tell me how long?"

"How long I've been in love with you?"

Chloe gulps and nods, and those words sound beautiful coming out of Beca's mouth.

"Ever since we moved in together."

"Jesus Christ, Beca. Why didn't you tell me?"

"I don't know, things got in the way," she sniffs up, and her fingers stroke over Chloe's knuckles as she wraps her other arm around her waist. "I thought that by me getting a girlfriend it'd make it… not better, but… I don't know, I thought that if I met somebody else it'd take my mind off of you. I was gonna tell you but I saw how you were with Stacie. I didn't want to ruin that. Then she broke your heart and," she pauses smiling when Chloe presses a kiss to her forehead. "And I wanted to tell you that night we first slept together, but you were hell bent on us just being friends with benefits, and I didn't want to ruin that."

"I could've broken you heart, Beca."

"It would've been worth it."

"It wasn't just sex for you, right?"

"Never."

"God, you really love me, don't you?"

"Always."

She's kissing Beca before she even realizes it, and it doesn't even surprise her because it's always been so natural like this. They've always managed to just get each other, to understand what they want, when they want it, and how they're going to give in to it.

Because she really should've known that Beca wouldn't do that to her. Beca wouldn't waste this many months letting Chloe know how much she loves her, just to leave when Chloe finally came to her senses.

When she kisses Beca, it doesn't feel like they're both trying too hard. It doesn't feel like one of them is putting more effort in than the other.

When she picks Beca up, and Beca's arms and legs wrap around her like they did all those months ago in the airport, Chloe thinks that maybe having Beca like this is the most beautiful thing in the world. So close, and so intimate, and so loved.

She feels like maybe Beca can be her forever.

Maybe Beca can be what Stacie refused to be.

When Beca asks her "can I touch you?" even when the two of them are stripped off and laying under the covers in Beca's bed, she thinks that Beca might be the type of person that Chloe feels like she's been searching for.

She _knows_ that Beca is the type of person she's been searching for.

So she lets her know. She pulls Beca close to her, and she threads her hands through her hair, and she kisses her until she feels like she's going to drown in Beca's love. But she knows that Beca will be there at the bottom if she does drown; loving her even more.

And she presses closer to Beca until she can't feel anything but their bodies rubbing against each other, and it's a little clumsier than most times they've spent in bed together, and it feels like the first time all over again, only she knows what to do to make Beca unravel beneath her.

She walks her fingers down her navel and kisses Beca's neck, and she teases her until she can feel her breath hitch with every small movement, and she breathes in her scent and kisses every inch of her. She loves her like she's never loved anybody before.

"Can we just kiss a little bit more?" Beca asks, and Chloe can't help but laugh, because of course she would ask her. Of course she would make Chloe fall deeper and deeper, with just a few words whispered in the small space between them.

And she kisses her, feeling the way Beca's lips feel against her own. It's not perfect, but it's enough, and their teeth sometimes click awkwardly, but when Chloe feels Beca's tongue slowly press against her top lip, she'd take awkward over not being with Beca any day.

When she hears Beca tell her that she loves her, and when she kisses Beca and tells her she loves her too, she realizes that she doesn't need to compare Beca to colors on a wheel that isn't even complete yet to know that she's completely in love with her.

Stacie might be a masterpiece; an array of new-found colors, ranging from pinks to yellows to blues, but the difference is that Stacie is a masterpiece on her own, whereas Beca and Chloe are a masterpiece when they're together.

Loving Beca is simple. It's easy. It isn't complicated.

Loving Beca is black and white, and Chloe thinks that's a masterpiece in itself.

* * *

 **come yell at me eliseboobman on tumblr, we'll have fun i promise**


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